Unwanted
by redcandle
Summary: A muggle girl curious about her biological parents turns out to be a squib.


"Unwanted" by Redcandle17

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and elements from the Harry Potter series belong to J.K. Rowling. No copyright infringement is intended.

The names listed were John and Jane Smith, but he'd forgotten and signed his real name. C. Warrington, whoever he was, was my real father – or at least the person who'd abandoned me.

My parents don't like me to bring the subject up. "We love you," Mom would say, "You're ours." She'd ruffle my hair, "Forget about them."

I understood why Mom and Dad wanted me to forget about it. I knew I hurt their feelings when I asked about my "real" parents. But I couldn't help it. I just wanted to know why this "C. Warrington" didn't want me.

I was fourteen years old the first time it occurred to me to look for him. I used Google. The results were full of historical records and people all over the world, young and old and dead.

The police report said witnesses described him as tall young man, probably early twenties, with dark hair and blue eyes. He'd gotten impatient and just left. No one had seen him leave. He was there one minute and gone the next. He'd vanished, disappeared into thin air.

I couldn't find any men named C. Warrington in the correct age range, though I'd taken to searching for him every night before I went to bed.

It was encouraging that I'd been abandoned by my father, not my mother, I thought. See, most guys left their girlfriends when they got pregnant with a kid they didn't want. If my father had been around long enough to see me born, maybe he'd loved my mother.

Maybe they couldn't afford a kid at the time. Or maybe their families didn't approve. It wasn't their fault. Why wouldn't they want me?

I watched people on television with their autistic, or retarded, or terminally ill, or severely disabled children; watched them profess their love and devotion. I was okay – healthy, got good grades so I guess I was fairly smart, kind of pretty even. What more did this C. Warrington guy want?

I almost didn't notice the new search result at first. Some business I'd never heard of was entering into a business partnership with another business I'd never heard of, one headed by one C. Warrington. I might not have thought anything of it if not for the photograph of the two CEOs shaking hands.

He matched the description, looked the right age.

It was stupid, I know. But I wanted to see him, wanted to make him see me. I spent hours trying to find out the location of his office, but I couldn't find any information for his company. It didn't seem to exist. But I knew he had to see the other businessmen occasionally. And their office was right here in London.

I told my parents I was spending the days with my friends, window shopping, going to the movies, gossiping. But each day of my summer vacation I loitered outside the entrance of the office tower, hoping to catch a glimpse of C. Warrington.

It wasn't until August that I saw him. It seemed like he appeared out of the air, but my mind must have wandered. I followed him into the building, into the elevator.

I trailed him when he got out on the twelfth floor. I didn't think he'd noticed me, not until he turned and glared at me.

"What do you want?" he demanded.

My mouth was dry and my throat ached. I thought I was about to pee myself. "Are you my father?" I squeaked.

He glanced around, taking in the deserted corridor, and yanked me into the men's bathroom.

I screamed.

"Shut up," he hissed.

He was blocking the door, but he hadn't moved any closer to me.

"Are you?" I asked again.

"I am, regretfully."

"Why did you abandon me?"

"I would have killed you, squib. You're only alive because your death would have upset my wife."

Wife? They were married? And he was rich, so they could have afforded a kid. "Why didn't you want me?"

He glanced at his watch. "Fuck, I'm late." He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket.

I shrank back against a sink in fear.

But he only drew a thin wooden stick. I was staring at it in puzzlement when he spoke.

"Obliviate."

My head felt foggy.

"I'm very sorry," a man was saying, "But I think you've wandered into the wrong room, young lady."

I noticed the urinals around me and felt myself blush. God, how stupid of me. "Sorry," I murmured, fleeing without a second look.

I was missing the first day of school, but it wasn't every day Granny came to visit, so my parents didn't mind. King's Cross station was busy as usual, people jostling by in a hurry. I watched the crowd so I wouldn't have to answer my little sister's questions about trains.

I noticed the owl first. It's hard to miss a huge owl in a cage in a train station. Then I noticed the girl pushing the trolley holding the owl's cage. She looked a couple of years younger than me – and she looked exactly like I had at her age.

There were other people with her. I supposed they were her family. There was a woman who looked like her mother, but prettier and dressed more nicely than most mothers; a man, who looked oddly familiar, like maybe I'd seen him somewhere else, and who was holding a little boy.

"Ellie, hold your sister's hand!" Mom screamed, startling me into turning to look at her and obediently grasping my sister's sticky little hand.

When I turned back to watch the people I'd been staring at, they were gone. I scanned the crowd, but there was no sight of them. They seemed to have vanished.

It was probably only my imagination to begin with. I felt guilty. I shouldn't be fantasizing about rich, good looking parents when Mom and Dad worked so hard to care of me, when I knew I acted like a brat quite often.

Then I heard an oddly dressed woman say, "Thought for sure you were a squib," before she hugged a boy who was also pushing a cart with an owl.

Squib? I was sure I'd heard that word somewhere before.

"Ellie, come kiss your grandmother!"

I went to kiss Granny and hug her, and by the time she let me go, I couldn't remember what'd I'd been thinking before.

Fifteen years ago...

It would be so easy to kill it. All he had to do was put his hand over its tiny face for a minute.

But he looked at Alicia, sound asleep in their bed, and he couldn't do it. All those hours she'd spent screaming in pain shouldn't be for nothing.

It couldn't stay here, though. Its very existence was a taint on his bloodline, on the prestige of his family.

He wondered if it was the first. Probably not. His family tree – perfectly pure and full of witches and wizards – was over five centuries old. Surely he wasn't the first to produce such an abomination.

It was no better than a muggle. It _was_ a muggle, really. He'd be doing it a favor by giving it to muggles. They'd know what to do with it.

What kind of life could it have in the wizarding world, anyway? Scrubbing floors like Flich? No. It was better this way.

It was crying when he left it.

Alicia was crying when he returned home. She didn't rebuke him though, she understood.

They were young and healthy. There would be plenty of time to have more children, magical children who'd make them proud.

End


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